The Galaxy Gear ships with a "USB debug" checkbox in the settings. Check that box, hook it up to a computer, and it will be usable with ADB, the Android Debug Bridge. ADB will in turn allow you to fire up a command line and sideload whatever you want onto the Gear's 4GB of storage. The Gear runs Android 4.2.2 with an 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM, so it can run real apps just like any other Android device. Considering that the original Android phones all had 528MHz processors and only 192MB of RAM, the Gear is a miniature powerhouse in comparison.

This could very well be the saving grace for this otherwise mediocre consumer device. I'm very curious to see what the XDA community can do with this.